Occupy Wall Street Drops Challenge to Zuccotti Eviction

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Lawyers for Occupy Wall Street
dropped a court challenge to the forcible eviction by New York
police of protesters from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan in
November, according to the city law department.

Lawyers for Occupy sued the city after demonstrators who
had been camping there to protest income inequality were evicted
from the park on Nov. 15. New York state Supreme Court Justice
Michael Stallman denied the request the next day, saying that
the protesters hadn’t shown they had a First Amendment right to
stay in the park.

“We think the plaintiff made the right move in withdrawing
her case, as it has no merit,” Sheryl Neufeld, senior counsel
for the city’s law department, said in a statement.

The demonstrations began on Sept. 17 when several dozen
protesters took up residence in the park to highlight the plight
of average Americans who have suffered from home foreclosures
and soaring unemployment while the largest U.S. banks have
recovered from the 2008 financial crisis.

The protests attracted thousands to Zuccotti Park and
spread to U.S. cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and San
Francisco, as well as overseas to London, Rome and Tokyo.

1,800 Charged

The demonstrators refer to themselves as “the 99
percent,” a reference to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph
Stiglitz’s study showing the richest 1 percent of the population
control 40 percent of U.S. wealth.

More than 1,800 people have been charged in connection with
the protests in New York since they began in September,
according to the New York City Police Department. Gideon Oliver,
an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who is representing
Occupy Wall Street protesters, and Melissa Coley, a spokeswoman
for Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zuccotti Park, didn’t
immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.

The case is In the Matter of the Application of Jennifer
Waller v. City of New York, 112957/2011, New York state Supreme
Court, New York County (Manhattan).